By way of background, many different types of lifts for positioning workers and material at various heights are presently in use. Lifts are used in many different types of environments, such as telephone line work, construction, fruit picking, general maintenance work on buildings, and the like.
One particularly advantageous type of lift is an articulating boom lift. An articulating boom lift includes an articulating boom formed by a plurality of sections hinged to one another. The sections are supported by a base that usually includes wheels and a drive system for transporting the crane. The boom sections may have a Z-shaped profile when the boom is in a partially extended position. The lower boom sections make up a “raising linkage” and the upper boom section, which may telescope, extends from the raising linkage to a personnel platform that supports the operator of the lift. Such an articulating boom lift is also known as a Z-boom lift, because of the boom's Z-shaped profile when in use.
While such an articulating boom lift can quickly lift workers to the job, power tools such as a welder generally require a separate ground-based power source. Thus, generators and combination generator/welders typically have to be rented or purchased and then brought to the work site along with the lift. Extra costs are thus incurred, and the products are generally exposed to the risk of accidental damage or theft. Further, this means there are cumbersome leads hanging from the boom platforms down to the portable equipment, and, during operation, a welder or generator has to be moved every time the user needs to change position or power level.
Prior art welder/lift systems involved welders with AC input power mounted on the platforms of large, engine-powered boom lifts. In such systems, the boom lift generator is used to deliver single-phase or three-phase power to the welder. However, one drawback to these prior art welder/lift combination systems is that such systems are generally expensive to purchase, run and maintain, and they are relatively complex in nature. Further, many on-site maintenance jobs require the use of only a small, electric boom lift, which would not include an on-board generator.